Rivernider back in Mass., allegedly handling used cars again

Monday

Jan 6, 2014 at 6:00 AMJan 6, 2014 at 11:14 AM

By Shaun Sutner TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

OXFORD — Convicted felon Darryl G. Rivernider, who was released from a Florida prison last February, is apparently handling used cars in Massachusetts again, according to three Worcester business owners who say Mr. Rivernider failed to pay for work on cars he brought them.

While there is no evidence that Mr. Rivernider, 67, is selling cars here — which would be a violation of a 2005 Massachusetts court order — the businessmen say Mr. Rivernider, and an associate, Charles M. Luyendyk, 62, delivered more than a dozen used vehicles to them in recent months.

Also, a neighbor of Mr. Rivernider said more than a dozen vehicles, including a Ford Focus, Subarus, vans and SUVs, have been driven or delivered by flatbed truck to the house at 20 Carron Lane, Oxford, where Mr. Rivernider lives when he is in the state. The house is owned by Mr. Rivernider's youngest son, Chad Rivernider.

Some of the cars delivered to the Oxford address had Florida dealer transport plates, said the neighbor, who declined to be identified.

As Mr. Rivernider appears to be active again in the handling of used cars, officials of the state Attorney General's office say they are looking at ways to collect $300,000 in restitution and penalties that Mr. Rivernider and his wife, Brenda, owe the state.

"We are currently reviewing options to ensure that the money is paid," said Christopher Loh, a spokesman for Attorney General Martha Coakley.

The $300,000 debt to the state stems from the Riverniders' repeated violation in 2011 of a consent order obtained by the AG's office in 2005 for the Riverniders to stop selling cars in Massachusetts.

During the period when the Riverniders operated Riverside Mitsubishi, an Auburn car dealership, a decade ago, the couple lured customers into buying cars with false promises of paying off balances and cheap refinance deals, failed to give buyers titles to their cars and denied promised refinance deals, according to the AG's office.

Meanwhile, Justin Furkuo, owner of 290 Auto Body Inc., of Worcester, said Mr. Rivernider and Mr. Luyendyk, whom a Florida prosecutor said helped Mr. Rivernider pull off at least one used car scam in Broward County, Fla., had 290 Auto Body perform $3,500 in paint and body work on a 2013 Ford Focus sedan that had hail damage.

On Nov. 11, Mr. Furkuo said Mr. Rivernider, going by the name "Darryl Rivers," picked up the Ford Focus and paid for it with a check after earlier asking to make partial payments, a request Mr. Furkuo declined.

The next day, Mr. Rivernider stopped payment on the check, Mr. Furkuo said. When Mr. Furkuo called him about it, Mr. Rivernider said there was paint overspray on the car, but it was not a "big deal" and that he would re-issue the check within two weeks.

"He never made the payment," Mr. Furkuo said.

Over the next few weeks, Mr. Furkuo said he exchanged calls and emails with both men, but he still has not been paid.

Mr. Furkuo said he called Chad Rivernider at Bertera Nissan in Auburn, where Chad works, last month to ask if he could intercede with his father, and the younger Rivernider told him he has had no contact with his father for five years. A few minutes later, Mr. Furkuo said Darryl Rivernider was on the line telling him: "If you call my son again, you are going to have problems."

Mr. Furkuo said he then filed a complaint with the Worcester Police Department alleging that Mr. Rivernider threatened him. But he said the responding officer said Mr. Rivernider's statement was not technically a threat.

When a reporter went to the Carron Lane, Oxford, house last week, a man who identified himself only as "a good friend of Mr. Rivernider" opened the front door and said Mr. Rivernider wasn't home.

He ordered the reporter off the property.

Parked in the driveway is the new black Ford 150 4-wheel-drive truck that neighbors and relatives say is Mr. Rivernider's, and a black latemodel Ford Escape SUV the neighbor said was recently deposited at the house by Mr. Rivernider's friend.

Another of the businessmen with recent dealings with Mr. Rivernider, Jamie Melendez, owner of a dent repair business, said he fixed a dent on a fender of a car that Mr. Rivernider — also going by the name "Rivers" — brought him and was paid $120 in the form of a money order.

"I found that very, very weird," Mr. Melendez said, referring to the older-style method of payment.

A few days later, Mr. Rivernider brought him a 2007 Honda Odyssey van with hail damage and Mr. Melendez repaired the hood, quarter panels and fenders and charged Mr. Rivernider about $850 for the work.

"I'll send you the check within a week," Mr. Melendez said Rivernider told him.

Another local businessman had an unpleasant encounter with Mr. Rivernider.

Richard Whitney, owner of Clean Cars Inc., an auto detailing service, said Mr. Rivernider and Mr. Luyendyk — whom Mr. Rivernider presented as a former assistant district attorney — brought him several Subaru Outbacks to clean; he was paid about $500, he said.

The men then brought three more Subarus to be detailed. He did the work, but wasn't paid, he said.

"They left us holding the bag," Mr. Whitney said.

In a phone interview from California, Mr. Luyendyk said he has never been an assistant district attorney, and that he is in fact a creditor of Mr. Rivernider and came to Massachusetts to help Mr. Rivernider sell some cars in other states, so that he could be paid back.

He said his arrest in Florida a few years ago after he picked up a couple at the airport who had flown in to buy a car from Mr. Rivernider was on a "trumpedup charge" of defrauding the elderly; he said it was later dropped.

"I'm a creditor and I got snookered," Mr. Luyendyk said. "This is probably naive on my part, but I don't believe he's the bad guy people say he is. He was an incredibly successful automobile dealer."

Celeste Gagné, the Florida prosecutor who put Mr. Rivernider in prison on an 18-month sentence for violating terms of probation in a racketeering case in which he pleaded guilty in 2011, said she is a bit surprised that Mr. Rivernider is back to selling cars. She noted, however, that Mr. Rivernider is off probation now, and allowed to sell cars, though not in Massachusetts, or in Florida, where she said he would never again be granted a license to sell used cars.

"I can't believe the chutzpah," she said. "All he wants to do is make the car look good. He doesn't care if it runs."

A first cousin of Mr. Rivernider, David Krevosky of Oxford, said it doesn't surprise him at all.

"Nothing's changed. This is the only way he knows how to make money."

Contact Shaun Sutner at ssutner@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ssutner.